In many data processing operations the information being processed is in the form of increments or words that carry an accumulation portion that is to be stored and an identification portion that tells the memory array where to put it. As progress in the art has taken place the arrays have become huge, the housekeeping and control circuitry very complex and the stored information both large and valuable. There have long been problems with such arrays in the ever increasing speed and size environment with testing, with timing and with component drift as examples. Where the memory array is made up of received, and in the timing of when data is launched or captured. It will further be desirable to periodically re-initialize timing as components drive or where addressable devices, on coming out of a long period of inactivity, may be found to have undergone a timing change due to temperature or voltage variation.
A need is developing in the art to be able to maintain and to reestablish conditions at individual memory elements in an array without tampering with the information stored in the array.